Visitors from across the country attended our Technical Leadership Learning Visit event with WorldSkills UK, as part of our status as a Centre of Excellence, earlier this month.
A range of senior leaders, managers and educators came to campus last Friday to explore the applications and benefits of adopting WorldSkills UK approaches.
Parisa Shirazi, Director of Standards at WorldSkills UK opened the event by highlighting Oldham College’s status as a Centre of Excellence and praising our work to widen participation with staff and students.
She said: “This is our first Network for Innovation, Technical Leadership event and hopefully the first of many that we will hold across the country to shine a light on organisations that are making a real difference with their workforce and learners.”
Cerian Ayres, Innovation Lead at WorldSkills UK, added: “Not only is Oldham College a WorldSkills UK Centre for Excellence, but they are also one of just four Centres for Excellence in SEND through the Education and Training Foundation (ETF). They know just how important inclusion is in organisations: because we need to make the most of everybody’s skills and talents.”
Laura Leong, High Performance Skills Coach and Colin Galley, FE Quality and Standards Manager, then joined a panel discussion and Q&A session with our own Jessica Criswell, Vice Principal for 16-19 & Adult Programmes and Tom Leahy, Head of Department for Building Engineering Services, who shared their experiences of WorldSkills participation.
Other highlights included visitor groups taking tours to hear talks about the impact of WorldSkills UK Educators’ practices at our Construction, Digital & Creative, and Hair, Beauty and Travel Centre facilities.
Staff explained how we use competitions and pressure tests to promote technical and professional excellence – and there was also a focus in the afternoon on how our status as a SEND Centre for Excellence helps staff to ensure our work nurtures innovation and inclusion in impactful ways.
Alan Benvie, our Vice Principal for Student Experience and Inclusion, said:
“It was a genuine honour for WorldSkills UK to choose Oldham College to host this event and we have set a really positive bar for future hosts to follow.”
“This proved to be a truly inspiring event with some brilliant engagement, discussions and knowledge sharing. We’ve made new relationships with people from across the country who quite clearly have now got the WorldSkills bug too – so a huge thank you to all the staff who worked hard to make this national event such a success.”
